The Oregon Child Development Coalition (OCDC) provides childcare and other services to seasonal and migrant farm worker families around the state of Oregon. The agency provides up to thirteen hours of daycare for infant, toddler, and preschool-aged children of these families. This agency feels that children of migrant or seasonal farm workers can learn and adapt better if they have access to books that contain characters, experiences, or themes that are culturally familiar to them.

OCDC will purchase 2,416 culturally appropriate books for 1,208 children in Marion, Polk, Wasco, Hood River, and Malheur counties. These books will be written in both English and Spanish and will, according to OCDC's grant application, "genuinely reflect the migrant and Hispanic experience in the United States."

Dayton School District serves approximately 1,000 students from Kindergarten through High School in this rural community. The school system has been recognized as a model in providing English as a second language to Spanish-speaking and other students. The percentage of Hispanic students in this district meeting the state benchmarks set for reading is well above the average. However, the district is below the state average for science.

The Dayton School District will use its grant to enhance their science curriculum at all levels in the district. Dayton Public Schools have already begun to improve their science programs and they have been the accepted to participate in the Oregon State University "Science and Math Investigative Learning Experiences," ("SMILE"). SMILE is an after-school science enrichment class. The district would use the grant money to purchase $5,000 worth of "Scientific Literacy Kits," at the Elementary School Level which will include $1,500 worth of books and $3,500 worth of videos and manipulatives, such as Legos, magnifying glasses, insect collection tools, robotics parts, etc. At the Junior and Senior High School level, Dayton School District would spend $2,000 to expand the library's science reference collection.

The high school would receive $3,000 worth of equipment needed for a Biotechnology class. Dayton High School has an accomplished faculty with the skills to teach this upper-level science course, but the school lacks the technical equipment needed for the class. With adequate funding, this would be the first time that a Biotechnology class is offered in the Dayton school district.

Columbia Gorge Arts in Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing arts education opportunities to children and adults in Hood River, Wasco, and Sherman counties. The services provided by this organization include in-service artist residencies, after-school programs, staff development workshops, community education classes and community arts events. Columbia Gorge Arts in Education focuses a good part of its resources to benefit poor or under-served communities.

The Columbia Gorge Arts in Education will use its grant money to fund their current project entitled, "Paints and Brushes". This new project would supply each of the eighteen K-8 grade schools serviced by Columbia Gorge Arts in Education with an "Art Box." The Art Boxes will contain $550 worth of various artistic supplies, ordered specifically to cater to the school's needs.

Oregon Center for Career Development in Childhood Care and Education (OCCD) provides a career development system for childcare providers or "practitioners". Little training is required to become a practitioner. Research done by OCCD has shown that most practitioners are under-educated women who do not earn a minimum wage, nor do their earnings improve with additional training. Therefore, there is little incentive for the practitioners to receive more training.

However, the research has also shown that childcare providers who receive better training give better care and facilitate better development in children. Therefore, OCCD has begun a voluntary, low-cost credentialing system for practitioners. One such special session provided through this credentialing system is the Early Words program, designed by the Multnomah Commission on Children, Families and Communities and the Legacy Health System to promote childhood linguistic development. OCCD recently received a $30,000 grant from Oregon Community Foundation to pay for the costs of this program.

OCCD will provide a children's book to each of the practitioners who attend one of the six Early Words training sessions. OCCD will also select 45 practitioners who attend all six training sessions to receive a $125 "language and literacy resource grant." With this money, the practitioner will be able to select from a list set out by OCCD various educational items for children such as additional books, audio tapes, and tape players etc. to supplement their childcare centers.

The Rotary Foundation of Klamath County is a non-profit organization functioning as the "charitable arm" for the Klamath County Rotary Club. The primary purpose of the Foundation has been to "promote educational, scientific, and charitable acts for the benefit of the community." The Foundation has met this purpose primarily by providing scholarship money to college freshmen.

Last year, the Rotary Foundation began a new program called "Klamath Cares, Klamath Reads." This event brought in 950 first-graders from around the county to the Oregon Institute of Technology, where the students received a hardcover book of their choice. For the rest of the day, the first-graders participated in various activities that celebrated reading.

The Rotary Foundation will buy books for the "Klamath Cares, Klamath Reads" program. Last year, the total cost of the books for this program came to $10,750. The Rotary Foundation will pay for the rest of the "Klamath Cares, Klamath Reads" expenses through fundraising and donations. They are hoping that this program can become an annual event.

Head Start programs were started in 1965 as advocacy programs to help meet the needs of low-income families. The UCAN branch was founded in 1973 and continues to serve families around Douglas County today. Children receive a variety of different services through UCAN, including health exams, personalized educational assistance, and opportunities for social events.

UCAN will buy three, high-quality, hardcover books for each of the 330 children enrolled in their Head Start programs. These books would go home for the children to keep and to use.

This grant proposal was a collaboration of five different agencies around the state. These agencies, all of which run domestic violence shelter and hotline programs, include the Mid-Valley Women's Crisis Service, My Sisters' Place, SABLE House, Henderson House, and the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence. The organizations have worked together on a number of different projects in the past year, and together they make up the Oregon Region III Shelter Program, which covers Polk, Yamhill, Benton, Linn, Lincoln, and Marion Counties. The common mission each organization shares is to provide services for victims of domestic and sexual violence and to educate the public about the issue of violence in homes.

These organizations combined for a joint request for grant money to divide evenly among the five programs. With this funding, each agency would buy books, videos, written materials and toys for children residing in the shelters. The agencies are also planning to buy educational materials about the issue of sexual and domestic violence to educate children in the community.

Ontario Middle School serves 600 youths in Malheur County in grades 6 through 8. This represents nearly half of all middle school aged students in the county. Many of these students have a limited English proficiency and many also are poverty stricken. Research has shown that at-risk students, such as a number of children at Ontario Middle School, benefit from quality after-school programs.

Ontario Middle School will pay for educational, after-school activities that will be of interest to the students and therefore will attract a higher attendance rate at the after-school program. The Ontario Middle School received another grant of $30,000 to begin an after-school program this fall.

The four components that will be funded by the Oregon DOJ grant program are (1) $1,500 for games and activities such as Monopoly, Clue, Checkers, and Chess, (2) $3,000 for art materials, like clay, glaze and paintbrushes, needed to supplement a ceramics program, (3) $3,000 to buy cameras, film, photojournals, and other art materials for a photojournalism/scrapbooking program, and (4) $2,500 would go towards a "model-building" program. While this program would be open to all students at Ontario Middle School, administrators are hoping that at-risk boys in particular will be inspired by this program, which will use the money to buy materials from local hobby-shops needed for model making. Administrators at Ontario Middle School will rely on feedback from students interested in all four areas of the after-school program before they decide specifically which materials to buy with the grant money.

The Community Action Team has been serving poverty-stricken residents of Columbia County since 1966. The primary goal of this program is to reduce the incidences of poverty and to make all community members "aware of the needs of the economically disadvantaged." Community Action Team offers a number of different programs, with several of them focusing on children and families.

Community Action Team collaborated on its grant request with several of their community partners, including Head Start, Even Start, local area preschools, childcare centers, and libraries. The Community Action Team will purchase 50 "theme packs." The theme packs will contain a variety of educational materials such as books, flannel boards, and hand puppets, and will be distributed by Community Action Team to its community partners.

Family Building Blocks is a child-abuse prevention center that targets at-risk families in the Marion and Polk County areas, offering intensive intervention programs for both children and parents. These programs include therapeutic classes, outreach visits, mental health assessment and treatment, and parent/child interaction classes. Last year, Family Building Blocks served over 400 high-risk families. The directors and employees of Family Building Blocks adhere to the concept that early intervention in the lives of at-risk children is beneficial to both the child and the parent.

Family Building Blocks will purchase the Second Step curriculum and supporting materials for use in their centers and during home visits. The Second Step curriculum is a violence prevention program, consisting of multiple lessons presenting anger-management skills along with examples of how to use those skills. Included in the curriculum kits are books, toys, puppets, and game, all of which promote non-violent problem solving. Members of the Family Building Blocks feel that the Second Step materials can be used to help reduce the cycle of abuse in at-risk families.

Klamath-Lake Child Abuse Response and Evaluation Services, or CARES, is a child abuse center that provides medical assessments for victims of sexual or physical abuse, while at the same time working to reduce the trauma these victims experience.

CARES has teamed up with the Klamath County YMCA to identify low-income children who were unable to start the 2001 school year with new supplies. CARES purchased new school supplies for over 400 low-income children. CARES believes that new school supplies will increase a student's readiness to learn, thereby increasing the student's self-esteem and reducing the chances that the student will fall victim to sexual abuse.

Heppner Daycare/Preschool is the only state licensed nonprofit childcare facility in South Morrow County. Childcare services are provided for children ranging in ages from 6 weeks to 12 years old. The Heppner Daycare/Preschool has attempted to keep tuition costs low and programs open to all families, regardless of their economic situation. Currently, the daycare and preschool programs serve over 75 families.

The space at the Heppner Daycare/Preschool facilities is separated into "zones," with each zone focusing on a different type of activity. The organization will add a new zone, which would include four computers and a number of programs for the children to use. The daycare/preschool will purchase computers and educational programs.

The Oregon Parent Center (OPC) operates with the mission of "empowering families with knowledge and information to improve the academic achievement of their children." This organization develops programs based on the needs expressed by the families they serve. All of the services provided by OPC are free to everyone.

OPC's primary goal is school readiness. One way that OPC works towards this goal is through the "Reading Buddies" program. The Reading Buddies program, which operates at OPC and Wolf Creek School three days a week. Readers can select a new book and read it alone, with a partner, or in a small group. After finishing a book, the reader gets to keep it and add it to his or her own personal library at home. This program has served over 100 children, preschool through eighth grade. OPC will purchase 1,250 books to help continue this program.